Shining a bright light into the dark corners of the shadow-world of literary scams, schemes, and pitfalls. Also providing advice for writers, industry news, and commentary. Writer Beware is sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc.

June 9, 2015

Awards Profiteers: How Writers Can Recognize and Avoid Them

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you may have guessed that I'm not a big fan of writing contests and awards.

Partly this is because so many are a waste of time, with minimal prizes, negligible prestige, and zero cachet on your writing resume. Why not spend your energy on something that can get you closer to building a readership--submitting for publication, or publishing on your own?

- Anonymous judging. Profiteers promise expert judging by people with standing in the publishing field, but don't reveal who those experts are. In fact, the judging may be done by the profiteer's staff, who may simply pick winners out of a hat.

- Non-prize prizes. To avoid cutting into their profits, profiteers offer prizes that cost them little or nothing: press releases, media announcements, database and website listings, features on satellite websites or in self-owned publications. Some offer little more than the supposed honor of winning the award.

- Opportunities to spend more money. Profiteers' profits don't just come from entry fees. They also hawk stickers, certificates, critiques, and more.

Profiteers may deviate from this template to some degree: some do provide money prizes, for instance, and not all solicit. But if more than four of these red flags are present in a contest or awards program--especially if there's a big entry fee--you should think very carefully about entering.

What about prestige? Profiteer awards and contests don't typically command a lot of name recognition, but if you win or place, you'll be able to tag your book as an "award-winning book" and yourself as an "award-winning author." How much readers care about such designations, though, is an open question. With all the fake review scandals, as well as readers' increasing disillusion with authorial self-promotion, I think book buyers have become more cynical in general about what authors say about themselves.

Profiteer awards and contests, which overwhelmingly target and ensnare small press and self-published authors, are a cynical play on authors' hunger for recognition and exposure in an increasingly crowded marketplace. In my opinion, they are never a worthwhile use of writers' money.

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Some examples of awards/contest profiteers:

- JM Northern Media runs more than 20 literary "festivals" and conventions. JM Northern is a ferocious spammer; if you're a writer, you've probably been solicited for one or another of its festivals.

Unlike many other profiteers, JM Northern offers actual money prizes. But it can afford to. According to an article in Examiner.com that's no longer accessible, its Hollywood Book Festival received 2,740 entries in 2012. At $75 per entry, that's a gross of $205,500. Let's assume that the other 20 festivals, most of which have a lower fee of $50, also get a lower number of entries--say, 1,500 (I'm lowballing to demonstrate how insanely lucrative this scheme is). Altogether, that's over $1.5 million just in entry fees. A year. When you add in revenue from the critiques and merchandise (likely provided by JM Northern's own Modern Media Publicity), it wouldn't surprise me to learn that JM Northern's annual festival gross is well over $2 million.

- i310 Media Group sponsors the Best Book Awards, the International Book Awards, the American Book Fest and the Bookvana Awards. Entry fees are $69-79, and each program has scores of categories (more than 100 for the International Book Awards), fancifully-described prizes that boil down to website features and press releases, and the "opportunity" to purchase award stickers and certificates.

- WILDsound, another prolific spammer, runs continuous monthly contests and "festival events" for screenplays, books, poetry, short stories, and more. Fees range from $20 ("$15 OFF regular submission") for a first scene to $170 for a full novel, but average around $45. Judging is done by the usual cadre of unnamed "Professional Writers and Writing Consultants"; prizes are readings by--it's claimed--professional actors. You can sample these poor-quality videos here.

- Other profiteers include Readers Favorite ($89 to $109, depending on when you register; over 70 categories; plenty of adjunct merchandise and services for sale); the Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards ($90, over 50 categories, stickers and certificates for sale); Literary Classics (two awards, one of which is relatively inexpensive at $48, but the other costs $90 and both feature the usual unnamed "experts" and hawking of adjunct merchandise); eLit Book Awards ($70-90, 65 categories, prizes consisting of website listings and spam--excuse me, newsletter mentions); and the Global Ebook Awards ($79, over 100 categories, with winners"eligible to purchase Global Ebook Award certificates attesting to their honor").

23 comments
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There have always been ripoff artists around, but the numbers of scammers have ballooned since the Internet made self publishing much bigger than it was before, when there were a few people being published by vanity presses and oters who had a niche market in mind. With so many people so desperate to be seen, there will always be those willing to take advantage. I remember one of our students being sucked into a poetry competition she had heard of through a spam email. They didn't charge you to enter, but they did tell you how impressed they were with your entry, however dreadful it was - and hers was excruciatingly bad! - and offer to sell you a copy of the published book. I told her they should be paying HER or at least giving her a contributor's copy. Fortunately, she had no money to buy the book - I even had to give her a stamp to send them her reply.

In a certain online forum, we're currently having a debate over the value of contests hosted by chapters of national writing organizations (specifically the RWA).

When I entered a couple of pre-published contests, I saw them as $20 to $35 for developmental feedback on unpublished works from 2-3 different judges, and also a chance to win on the side, plus I don't mind supporting the RWA in general as I've gotten so much from the organization. It's clearly a fundraiser for the chapter and the judges are anonymous.

On the other hand, I personally found the feedback really helpful, and continued to use some of the things I learned in a different manuscript I've since published. But others have said feedback has been less helpful, and as the judges are volunteers from the chapters, they have varying levels of experience and even tact. I see the contests as educational tools, not marketing ones--but if you want prestige, they're not the best way to go, and make sure the ones you enter are either something you don't mind donating money to and/or give you something you consider valuable even if you don't win.

I got spammed repeatedly by the "New Apple Book Awards for Excellence in Independent Publishing."

The terms are no longer up, but as I recall it was a like $80 entry fee with the prize being a sticker and mention on their website. 77 categories.

New Apple is a marketing company, so I'm sure the entrants and "winners" got solicited for their services.

Legitimate writing contests may or may not charge fees, but if they do, then the prize money should have a reasonable ratio with the fees - it's perfectly legitimate to charge a reading fee to cover the cost of a large prize. Non monetary prizes can sometimes be valuable, too, especially if there isn't a fee. (I've seen prizes that include club or group memberships, a stack of books, even an expenses-paid writing conference or retreat). And sometimes you get something with your entry fee - it's not uncommon for magazines to run contests for which the price of entry is a subscription.

Where you need to be careful is in the grey area between the obvious scammers such as New Apple and the legitimate contests. And be really careful with contests run by newspapers - for some reason, newspapers just LOVE to claim publishing rights to all entries.

I bristle when I see awards where the winner gets publication + $2,000-5,000. So you give up your rights for a $2,000 advance? I suppose if you're desperate to be published...

But I did find a useful award last year. The Illinois Library Association is now running the laboriously titled Soon To Be Famous Illinois Author Project for indie fiction, which is free--I just had to get a librarian from my local library to sponsor me. I didn't win but I was one of three finalists, and got to go to the award reception in Chicago. There was no monetary prize but even as a finalist I've found benefit in being able to forge a solid relationship with my library and others in the area, the Chicago Tribune interviewed me, and so on. The ILA are offering to help other states replicate their award.

The Historical Novel Society, my own genre organization, has a few awards with small cash prizes that are free to enter as far as I know. They're all genuine attempts to find good HF writers, run by volunteers.

The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award has been a good one for some indies--you have to be willing to be published by Amazon if you win, but the prize is $50,000 which is a decent advance. I'm not sure if they intend to keep it going, though, and would welcome other commenters' opinions about its value. I haven't entered it but my critique partner did, quarter-finaled, and subsequently was offered a book deal by another publisher.

I hope a few more people can suggest useful awards, especially for indie writers, because honestly, I haven't seen much benefit in any of the pay-to-play awards I've come across.

Oh!Victoria: I am so glad you wrote this blog. I know authors who love those contests and enter dozens. And believe those stickers and seals on books covers are grand and sell books. I think they just interfere with smashing cover art. The best award for me as an indie author is a book sale! And if the reader likes the book, an organic review. To Rebekkah Niles: I was an early member of RWA and roped into judging Chapter mss. I was well-published by Harlequin and the only way I knew to critique was in the same manner my editors sent me revision letters. Oh my. I made so many enemies. Aspiring authors did not and still don't, have a clue about what a book goes through to reach publication. Tact has little to do with it. I don't go near aspiring authors now because most want validation that they can write, when the real question is "Can I tell a story?" It is an immense amount of work to bring a book to publication. Good luck to all with your books.JackieWegerNo Perfect Secret

Victoria,Thanks for your article. I always enjoy reading what you have to say. Whenever I hear about authors being taken advantage of, it seems the blame is placed on the "unsavory" companies or vanity presses lurking to make a buck off of the self-published/indie authors. There's a lot of blame to go around in the traditional, "reputable" world, as well. When Kirkus Reviews charges indies $425/standard, $575/express service and Clarion charges $499/book for a review, there's nothing reputable about it, especially when you could be paying for an expensive bad review of your book.

No one is making any of us enter these contests or pay for the reviews. We have the option not to do so. It's the same with vanity presses. If an author does her research, wishes to use a company that knows a little more about simply getting a book published than she does, what difference does it make if she uses them? It's her money.

As for the "quality" argument too often used against self-publishing (and even more so against vanity presses), can anyone honestly say that whenever they walk into a bookstore, it's filled with quality inventory? Books of literary merit? I can't.

Sorry for the long comment. I just feel the blame isn't always placed where it should be. Thanks, again, for your articles.

Well said, Victoria, I completely agree with you and always feel sad when I see an author proudly announcing that he or she has won an award I know to be meaningless. One tip I often cite for any authors thinking of entering competitions is to check out the list of the previous year's winners and see whether you'd be proud to see your book listed among them. Such a search usually brings up an array of very amateurish looking covers with unalluring titles, clearly the work of naive beginners who have been completely taken advantage of. I once mused online "How do such competition organisers sleep at night?" and a friend replied "On expensive silken sheets"!

One aspect of competitions that you haven't touched on is the effect on the morale of NOT winning. Even supposing an author is entering only worthwhile, upright competitions - and they do exist - you have to assume that you're more likely to lose than to win, and I for one find such rejection rather sapping. As you wisely counsel, better to get on with the more important task of writing and publishing the next book instead ...

while I'm grateful for your warnings, I do love writing comps. I tend to enter the free ones (and no, they don't always get loads of entries)! In one year my income from these outstripped my income from royalties (admittedly it wasn't a great year for royalties). Writers definitely shouldn't enter hoping for prestige and huge financial rewards - with a full-length book you're probably much better off with publication. But with a poem or short story you can do very well with competitions, and then publish it too if you still have the rights. If it then goes into a collection then you can be paid again. My poem 'I Want One' first won a Creative Future Gold Award (£150 prize) and then won the Texas Pen2Paper Poetry Contest in 2014 ($100). It was then published in my second collection (Look at All the Women, for which book I've had royalties.I should make a disclosure here - I've written a book about writing competitions, and I run a site (Cathy's Comps and Calls) that lists ONLY FREE wrting competitions, and none from the places I know to be dodgy (i.e. offering all entrants publication in an expensive anthology). I do think that people can have enormous fun and make money from writing competitions, but only if it's approached in a certain way. I hope that your readers won't be put off having a go - just from parting with money, or choosing the wrong path for their book.

Thank you. This post confirms my suspicions about writing contests. My own skepticism leads me to think that even the better contests are "rigged" in some way. Like little magazines, I imagine many literary contests involve cronyism, favoritism, nudge-and-wink arrangements among members of an inner circle.

Hi! Thanks for this very informative article. I was wondering about the International Latino Books Award. They have many, many categories and these are the entry feesIf entered by October 15, 2015, the fee is $65 per entry If entered after October 15, 2015, the fee is $90 per entryThey don't even say they give a sticker to the winners....I guess is all about the promotion.Thanks!

The International Latino Book Awards do bear several similarities to profiteer awards programs: high entry fees, dozens of entry categories, unnamed judges. On the plus side, the Awards seem to be sponsored by a legit organization (Latino Literacy Now) and they appear to have an association with the American Library Association; winners also appear to be promoted at major book fairs and trade events such as the ALA Conference.

So this appears to be a "bit of both" situation. I'm guessing that the awards do make a profit for the sponsor, but there also appears to be some real recognition and promotion for authors who win or place.

Even so, I think authors need to seriously ask themselves whether it's worth shelling out $65-90 for a chance of winning.

Not just contests but applying for gigs can be precarious too. I bet we're all sick to death of responding to gigs with applicable scripts only to be told the old standard 'It's not what I'm looking for'. I get this all the time. My first script has been entered into two contests and the synopsis/logline sent in response to countless gigs - most reply with the above comment. 2 months ago I was surfing IMDB and came across a new Kevin Bacon film 'The Darkness'. The first act concerns a family vacationing in the Grand Canyon and the young boy accidentally finds a secret hole where there are several Native American stones. They steal them and are haunted/hunted by spirits etcThe first act of my first script concerns a family vacationing in The Badlands. The young boy accidentally stumbles upon a Native American Burial cave and steals the headdress of the skeleton of a Native Warrior. They are hunted/haunted but the narrative develops in a different vein. probably co-incidental but I remain skeptical.

Whilst I agree with you that there is a dark side to publishing, I'm surprised by the number of self publishers that manipulate Amazon. I think these practises of getting top seller are simply 50 friends all writing reviews before 12 midnight. It's easy to do. At least my book was read by independent authors and publishers on the other side of the world. Regards, Winner 2016 Bookvana Awards and Finalist International Book Awards for Stuck in a Rut - How to rescue yourself and live your truth.

As owner of a small indie publishing company, I encourage my authors to give the awards programs a try. That said, we ask them to check with us first to make certain the awards are not on the "writer beware" list.

To Writer Beware: I'm not too sure whether you're being unfair with your criticism of the Wildsound festival. Agreeably the web is saturated with scammers and your website does a good job in making writers wary of being duped. However, traditional publishers and literary agents just don't bother with some genres as fictional/fantasy, and pitching to them is an eternal wait with no feedback at all.So why bother? Remember Dickens? Had to publish his works in serial form (Household Words) before he eventually landed a deal. Thank God he did, otherwise his manuscripts would have gone to the refuse dump. I checked Wildsound actors out and asked for Val Cole, a professional with a quality track record, to read poem. So beautifully read, I tried her on a chapter of a novel. Again beautifully read. This cost about 35 bucks, equivalent to a few beers at the pub or a few coffees at Starbucks. Now I have a link to which I can refer a prospective publisher or agent. I'm getting good feedback and will now pay a few bucks for the first chapter, and then keep trying with web-links. Methinks its the way to go in this very competitive industry. Just another way to pester the Dickens out of publishers! Both comments below are unsolicited, from those who read my self-published book.“I absolutely loved your book, Briar Earth & feel it is a modern classic. I really feel it would make an amazing animated movie. Thank you for letting me read it “ Rosie.I was totally transfixed with the feeling of oneness with every personality the story introduced.I was an unseen extra on every page.Robyn Radford.21 July 2017.

I'm afraid I do not quite agree with your assessment. The majority of book awards charge a fee. If they receive a lot of entries and writers pay, and their work is not of high quality, then of course they are wasting their funds. I see nothing wrong with book awards. Writers must know their limitations and only submit quality work that is worthy of an award. I spoke directly to Jenkins Group, and their mission in life is to support organizations with their awards. They collect the novels and payments and distribute them as directed. Accountability is important in book competition. Without it, an organization would lose creditability. Therefore, these marketing media groups play a vital role in the system itself. Yes they're expensive, however, that does not demise the important role they play. I've seen many complaints on Writers Beware and as an Acquisition Editor for a small publisher, I find the complaints to be quite simple. A writer believes their work is the best ever and no one will publish it for them. Then when a publisher talks about hybrid publishing or self-publishing, you list it as spam. I think it would behoove this site to do a little more research before they point fingers at others. Perhaps writers should be aware of Writers Beware and perhaps you should do a write up on yourself.

It's true that many awards programs charge fees, including some of the most prestigious (though for those, like the National Book Awards, it's the publisher that pays, not the author). However, as noted in my post, there's also a very large number of awards and contests whose sole purpose is to make money for the sponsor, and these programs have some very distinct warning signs. They are worth taking into account when you're considering whether to enter your book into an awards program.

Of course Jenkins Group gave you the most positive interpretation of their high-fee awards programs. You wouldn't expect them to admit that their agenda is to make pots of money, would you? And you're correct that accountability is important to an organization's survival--which is why smart predators pay out the promised prizes and ship the purchased merchandise (a small expense compared to the thousands and thousands of dollars or pounds or euros they collect from writers who enter their many awards programs).

Thanks for this article, Victoria. I've had a lot of spam from someone called Andrew Parvel about an annual ebook literary award run by the Jenkins Group with an $80 entry fee. I kept pushing it into my junk folder but today opened one up and saw the kinds of red flags you cite above. First, how did these people get my email address? Second, why would legitimate awards have to spam to find applicants? Third, why would these 'eLit awards' send me not one spam, but repeats, including 'today is your last chance to save on your entry fee'? I see that you've mentioned this outfit on another post and that a commenter above has countered that it has a "mission in life to support organizations with their awards'. Based on these marketing tactics I'd say its mission in life is to support the Jenkins Group. Legitimate awards don't hustle applicants.